Full Ratchet: A Silas Cade Thriller Hardcover (16 page)

She laughed. “Get out of here.”

“Sure.” I backed toward the bridge. Once I was a little farther away and moving, she probably couldn’t hit me except by luck. We watched each other the whole way, until I scuffed the main beam with one heel. “Later,” I said, and started jogging.

I didn’t look back. She didn’t shoot me. Good enough.

H
armony reminded me of someone.

Showing up to brace Brinker all by herself—that wasn’t so smart, especially if she had backup available. He was a civilian, sure, but he’d already proven to have dangerous associates. The firefight at the barn was adequate demonstration of that. A lone gun for hire, prone to unnecessary risks . . . oh, right, that’s
me
.

Anyone else on the other side of our standoff, I probably would have kept firing, the hell with the risks. But Harmony struck a chord.

So to speak.

I bet she hated that sort of pun.

Meanwhile, a more immediate question: where could I sleep tonight? Dave wasn’t answering. I didn’t want to drive all the way down to the cabin in West Virgina, especially with the bedbug problem there. Money was low but hadn’t run out yet, so I found a motel not far from downtown, a five-story granite building with a façade from the nineteenth century. It still had “Fur Exchange” carved into stone above the second story, but now it seemed to house mostly homeless families, not trappers and traders.

I took a shower so long and hot it was a wonder the boiler didn’t run out.

The night wasn’t restful.

I was out at dawn, hauling my satchel of guns down to the car—no way would I have left it in the trunk overnight. Breakfast was coffee, “cheese” Danish and a jar of peanuts from a gas station. Then I drove out of the city. Back to horse country.

Brinker had left home.

No lights, no cars. I waited two hours, sitting in the Aveo a quarter mile up the road, the estate just visible. Commuter traffic started early: pickups mostly, at first—the hard-used vehicles of people who work for a living. Then more cars, newer and shinier as the clock ticked through rush hour. Around eight-thirty the volume slowed again. I ate peanuts and tried not to yawn too much.

An hour after that I emerged from the cab, stiff and tired. But the day was beautiful, sunshine burning off the dew and birds in the air. I pissed against the rear tire, checked the Sig, got back in and drove straight to the barn.

All the way in I kept scanning the grounds. Nothing suggested habitation. The windows were blank and still, the doors all closed up tight. The gravel drive was gouged and the lawn torn where my Lincoln had been flipped over, but no other sign of the events two nights ago was visible.

The barn was empty. It smelled of horses and feed and shit, but the animals themselves were gone. I walked back to the house and tried the bell, then pounded the door. Nothing.

I could have broken in, but Brinker didn’t seem like the kind of wrongdoer to leave evidence lying around in plain view. After another minute I gave up and returned to the car.

Down the road I called Clara.

“Kind of busy right now,” she said.

“What’s going on?”

“Deadlines. Server crashing my last post. Twitter queues. The usual. Hey, how’s Harmony?”

What is it about women? “We’re not completely trying to kill each other anymore.”

“That’s progress.”

I pulled off the road at a wide patch of gravel—the kind of place hunters might park for a few hours of deerstalking. Trees shaded the ground. A pair of cars went by in the other direction, one tailgating the other, clearly impatient.

“Give me a minute?” I said. “I was hoping you’d found something on Clayco’s mystery buyer.”

“They’re selling the Micro division, all right.”

Nabors had confirmed as much, but it was nice to hear it from outside. “I thought so.”

“This guy I know, he’s an analyst at Wetherell Stark.”

The name was familiar. “Hedge fund?”

“Private equity, mostly. It’s been a bad few years—they’re trying to move into distressed debt.”

“An evergreen market, the way the world is now. What about them?”

“So he pays attention to subgrade issues, and Clayco’s barely treading water. It’s a lot worse than it looked when I first checked. You know the story—borrowed way too much when the money was easy, and now they can barely roll it over every quarter.”

“Liquidity crunch?”

“Serious. Selling Pittsburgh will keep the wolves away for . . . let’s see, he gave me some cash flow numbers . . . nine months.”

I found myself nodding. “Clayco really needs the deal.”

“Nine months takes us just through next bonus season. What do you bet the CEO’s rewriting his retirement provisions as we speak?”

“No bet.” I got out and leaned on the car’s door, stretching my legs. “Okay, I get it. Clayco is a motivated seller. Who’s the buyer?”

“Ah.” Clara sounded disappointed. “Not so much progress there. The entity’s name is Dagger Light Holdings, but it’s just a shell. Montserrat incorporation and the directors are names from the same local law firm that set it up.”

“Can your friend track them down?”

“He’s busy. Wetherell Stark looked at Clayco, decided against it and moved on. Probably why he was willing to tell me anything—it’s just an anecdote now, impress the crowd at the bar.”

“Was that you? A face at the bar?”

Clara laughed. “I bought him some drinks, yeah, so what?”

“Uh-
huh
.” I let it go. “Know anyone else you can throw at Dagger Light? Which, by the way, that’s a pretty good name.”

“For a throwaway.” She paused. “Sorry, had to check . . . um . . . oh, right. Montserrat. Yeah, I’ll ask a Scottish contact I know. She’s got some connections at HMR.” Her Majesty’s revenue service, that is—Montserrat is a British territory.

“Maybe you could talk to Johnny, too.”

“Why, is he in on this?”

“No, but he might be able to help out. He knows everybody.”

“I’ll call him.” She might have anyway—he really was good for gossip, and always willing to listen to Clara. I know he fed her storylines occasionally, hoping to spin the market one way or another. They could be remarkably useful to each other.

“Nothing about Russians?” I said.

“No.” Clara paused a moment. “Though, I wonder . . .”

“What?”

“Want me to plant something?”

“Try to flush them out?” I thought about it. “No, not yet. Might be useful later.”

“Whatever you do, you’re going to let me know, right?”

So she could beat the other newshawks into print. “I don’t think there’s anything in it for you.”

“There’s always
something
.”

A beep. “Hey, I got another call.”

“See you.” She hung up.

I looked at the phone, pressed a couple of buttons and lost the call waiting. That’s what happens—I’m always buying new crappy phones, and they’re all a little different.

The incoming number read as “unavailable.”

I tapped the steering wheel for a few moments. I’d tried Dave earlier, and he still wasn’t picking up.

The phone rang again. This time I got it.

“Where are you?” said a familiar cranky voice. “I’ve been on the road all night.”

—

I don’t know what it is about Zeke.

He’s no more than average height, kind of stringy, wears plain cotton shirts, talks quiet and—mostly—polite. Nothing particular to see, unless you study his hands, or maybe watch him move, and those are the sorts of clues that only people in the business pay attention to. But somehow, there’s a feral, lethal aura that even children and dogs notice.

Which is just to explain why there were three empty seats next to him at the Stanwood Road coffee shop. He’d been working on a large cup of something—black coffee, no doubt—and watching the street, while businesspeople and slackers and poseurs flowed in and out and around his invisible force field.

“Thanks for coming,” I said.

“You’re late.” He didn’t shake hands, just got to his feet like smoke rising from a fire.

“I had to drive back into the city.” I looked at the line of people waiting. Some damp croissants and vastly oversized muffins sat uninvitingly on a tray behind the counter. I thought I heard a percolator—a
percolator
!—bubble somewhere.

I missed New York.

“Let’s get out of here.”

“Let me finish my coffee.”

Zeke had taken a bus to Pittsburgh, which is a truly pathetic way to travel, but safer and more anonymous than driving. Over one shoulder he had his own go bag—stiff waxed canvas, faded with age and neatly strapped shut.

He must have left long before dawn. Maybe he slept on the bus.

We walked along the sidewalk, which felt empty compared to Manhattan’s constant throngs. For three blocks the downtown was a metropolis, skyscrapers and reflective glass and office workers smoking outside revolving doors. Then it all stopped. We crossed a four-lane avenue and landed in a scrabbly little park running along the bank of the Monongahela.

Zeke looked up and down the river. The sun was bright enough to be painful. A powerboat motored past. Traffic noise drifted steadily down from the span of the Fort Pitt Bridge.

“Ryan’s still missing,” Zeke said.

“Nothing?”

“He’s not answering calls and no one’s seen him.” Zeke started walking. “I mentioned to a couple of people.”

“That he was missing?”

“Yeah.”

“And now they’re looking for him, too?”

“Exactly. Wide attention, in fact.”

Of course. Not because Ryan had a lot of friends worrying about him, but because he’d worked with many of us, here and there, different jobs over the last two or three years. If something had gone wrong and he’d been killed, well, that’s sad, but it happens and life goes on. On the other hand, if he was sitting in an interrogation room at the Federal Building, that was an altogether different matter.

Most of Ryan’s acquaintances would surely prefer him dead.

My world. Zeke’s world.

“Hope they find him,” I said.

“Yup.” Zeke shifted his shoulder bag. “So tell me a story.”

I ran through it again, the detailed version. It took some time.

We walked along the bridge to the water, the cars above us banging over expansion joints. I could smell exhaust and diesel.

“Russians,” said Zeke when I’d finished.

“Yup.”

“Mafiya
?
”

“Probably. Regular business doesn’t usually come to the table with light artillery.”

“I thought the mafiya
was
regular business over there.”

“Less so than ten years ago, according to the State Department.”

“Not sure why they’re interested in seismographs . . .” He left the thought hanging.

“Could be a natural gas company. Maybe the money angle is more important. Or some gang might be working for the government. Hell, in Russia now the gangs
are
the government, only they came out of the security forces.”

“No need to make it complicated. If mystery Russians are shooting up America’s heartland—one phone call and the U.S. government will be all over this. That’s what the FBI’s hotline is for. Solve your problem for you.”

We stopped on some wide stone steps leading down to the fountain at the end of the park. Water jetted fifty feet in the air. A light breeze blew the fountain’s steady mist away from us. It was warm enough to remove my jacket, but the world didn’t need to see the holster I had underneath.

“The U.S. government might already
be
involved,” I said. “You don’t get a ghost plate at the DMV.”

“Maybe. Maybe not. There’s a market.”

“Really?” I looked at Zeke. “I didn’t know that. Who’s selling?”

“Something I heard once.” He made a who-knows gesture with one hand. “Could have been nothing but bar talk.”

“I’d like to follow that up.”

“I’ll try to remember who it was.”

We watched a power yacht sail past, cutting a steady rumbling wake on the river.

“This should have been a simple audit,” I said. “One little company fiddling the books. You know what the problem is?”

Zeke shrugged.

“Firearms,” I said. “There’re too damn many of them. People are always trying to fix things with guns.”

“That’s funny, coming from you.”

“Yeah, but I’m careful, well trained and respectful.”

My phone rang. I pulled it out.

“Yeah?”

“This is Brinker.”

I wasn’t sure I heard right. “What?”

“Brinker. Remember? You’ve almost gotten me killed twice now?”

I gestured at Zeke, tipped the phone out so he could lean in and listen.

“How did you get this number?”

“You’re Silas Cade, aren’t you? That’s what that woman was hollering at my barn. I made some calls.”

“Mistaken identity.”

“I don’t think so. You still in town?”

It sounded like him. The attitude was right. Brinker had an exceptionally generous allowance of self-confidence, even for a one-percenter executive.

“Not sure what town you—”

“We need to talk. You and me, in person.”

“You’re talking to me now.”

“Not on the phone. It’s possible you’re not who I think, right? Not likely, but possible.”

I raised my eyebrow at Zeke. He shook his head.

“What do you want?” I said.

“Two o’clock. Versailles Road between Leechburg and Freeport.” He pronounced it ver-SALES. “Be there, and we can have a civilized conversation.”

“Where?”

“Right on the river.” He repeated the address. “Go in the second gate. The lock’s broken. I’ll be near the foundry.”

“Foundry,” I said. “You want to meet at a steel mill?”

“It’s been shut down for thirty years. Kids and scavengers get inside now and then, but that’s it.”

“You’re setting up a meet . . . in an abandoned steel mill.” The conversation was going south.

“It’s safe, and private, and I can see you coming from a mile away.”

“You think we’re in some Jerry Bruckheimer movie? This is fucking stupid.”

“No more ambushes. Two o’clock.” He hung up.

Zeke straightened, a smile glinting. “
That’s
more like it,” he said.